Guest Essay, "Embracing the Challenge": A Tale of Perseverance on the Page with a 100 Submissions Goal in 2020 (Storytellers Continuing to Strive in 2021)

 

Editor's Note (NMB): I recall it was in the winter when I came across a Facebook post from an editor colleague I'd worked with on something in 2011, an NLAPW sister, who had set what seemed an insurmountable goal in an incredibly difficult time. I used the word "inspiring" in my comment on the post and we briefly chatted about it before I decided to approach her to write yet another thing more—a piece about her experiences. Without revealing the outcome, I wish to share a bit about what went into my request. 

Ms. Vonnie Winslow Crist had set the goal of one hundred submissions in 2020. In a normal year, it could be considered an amazing ambition. In 2020? It was nothing short of extraordinary in my eyes. Through the many things I've learned and experienced in different areas of life through these times with a continual intention to bring back to you what treasures I can, this was something I wanted my writers to see when so often many were understandably confronted with the difficulty to create. Writers ranging from new to established were frequently saying the same thing to which I could respond with a solemn nod of recognition, and then I came across that Facebook post and its outcome at a time when I was interested in pursuing the theme of writing in challenging times prescriptively in various ways with some possible different authors and tools like prompts on the Facebook Holiday "Bizarre" page or experiences in different mediums. I saw this and thought how I would love a piece from Vonnie for the page that put things in a very engaging, relatable, encouraging way. 

I rather liked the idea of making it a more intimate, gently conversational, "how I did this" piece about her work patterns and specificity about the sending out/submitting—while in the midst of what was 2020. Thinking of it as, How I Managed Generating (X amount) of Published Pieces in 2020 and Other Miracles... or something to that effect was envisioned. I wanted her to go internally, capture and convey that mindset she'd utilized, drawing on a well of perseverance undeterred and have the external part of the piece be mindful of motivational impact on others. Vonnie exceeded expectation while gracefully and eloquently underscoring the most important elements in her own magical way with reminders of who we are, what we do, and oddly enough, through the process of doing the piece, mentioned to me that it reminded her "once more" of her why.

The circle goes round in our sharing and creating and on this day of the solar eclipse, the ring of fire—our passion, our creation, our love and connectedness as creatives burns bright in the dark. Our initial conversations about this piece took place in the winter and Vonnie's recent words in our correspondence said that she "continues to embrace the challenge and persist." So should we all. The next eclipse is in December as a fun fact, so around again in time and creation we go. Let's see what we can all do in 2021. Ignite your heart and your art, storytellers.     

Image of Vonnie Winslow Crist featured with permission

Embrace the Challenge

by Vonnie Winslow Crist

Life presents writers with obstacles all of the time. That said, the year 2020 was filled with more roadblocks to creativity and publication than usual. Little did I know on New Year's Eve 2019 when I decided to write and submit 100 stories or poems to publications in 2020, that a pandemic, fierce politics, and personal challenges would try to stop me. I soon discovered all of those things and more did stand between me and my 100 submissions goal. But I was determined to persist.

I began 2020 with lots of reminders designed to inspire me pinned to the bulletin board behind my computer. Quotes like: “Finish the things you've started,” (a hard one for me). “Everything is possible” – Deepak Chopra. “Know thyself! Know your limitations, habits, and strengths.” “Do your best.” “Persist!” I also hung a calendar (on which to jot deadlines) with animals and inspiring quotes on the board.

Beside the bulletin board I hung two legal-size clipboards. On each of these, I clipped a handmade chart titled, Project Planner. Under the title, I made three columns, exactly the size of postable notes, labeled: Projects, Next Action, Pending. Then, I used three different colors of sticky notes to fill in the charts. In the Projects column, I placed 100 Submissions and the names of several stories I was in the process of writing, Beneath Raven's Wing, Dragon Rain, Writing for Anthologies, and two other untitled books I was working on. In the Next Action column, I listed what step needed to be done to reach that goal. Things like: edit a story, finish a poem, pull together research, or look for a market. Under Pending, I placed tasks which weren't pressing, but I could address when writing seemed difficult. Examples of what I listed: update bibliography, update website, write a blog post, enter data into Internet Science Fiction Data Base, rewrite a flawed story/poem...

Why the bulletin board and Project Planner charts? I'm a visual person. I need reminders in front of me of tasks to be done. Also, it was positive reinforcement when I took down the title of a finished story which had been submitted to a market, and replaced it with the title of another story I'd just begun.

But where to find 100 stories or poems to submit? I had a few pieces of writing in my files which just need to be revised. I revised those, then looked for markets. While searching for suitable markets, I jotted down the submission information on several anthology calls I spotted on Ralan.com, the Submission Grinder, or in Facebook's open submission call groups. I used the themes of those submission calls as inspiration. If I was going to write more stories, why not write with an anthology in mind?

Which brings me to drabbles. You might ask, “What's a drabble?” Answer: It's a piece of flash fiction exactly 100 words in length, not including title or byline. Having written poetry, a genre which requires every word to earn its place, writing a story in 100 words seemed an easy task. Wrong! But I'd decided 2020 was the year to embrace challenges, so I tried my hand at drabbles.

Sometimes, I took a longer story I'd already written, and condensed its core narrative down to 100 words. Other times, I wrote a 100-word tale knowing I wanted to expand the drabble into a longer story later. Committing to only writing 100 words never seemed a huge mountain to climb—rather it seemed a few minutes of scribbling. An unforeseen bonus to drabbles, markets for the little stories usually allowed multiple submissions and acceptances. Ta-dah! I was moving toward my goal.

My go-to word for 2020, persist, became more important as acceptances and rejections arrived in my in-box. I had to remind myself, whether an editor loved or hated my story/drabble/poem, it was one person's opinion. I signed the contracts for the acceptances, and immediately found a new market for the rejected pieces of writing—while continuing to write new work.

The continuing to write new work part of the formula to reach 100 submissions was sometimes difficult. The world seemed to be crashing down. How could I worry about writing?

Every day (and sometimes more than once a day), I reminded myself stories were not only important, but necessary. From childhood on, I'd always valued the family stories I was told. From the moment I taught myself to read, I'd read books brimming with story in every spare minute. As soon as I was able to string together a few sentences, I'd told stories and recited nursery rhymes (one of the first narratives we discover) to younger sisters, family, and friends.

What I still remind myself, and encourage others to remember, is: Story, whether told in prose, poetry, or paint, is one of the things which bind all humans together. Therefore, storytelling is important. And those of us who wear the storyteller's sweater, are essential to this world. Remembering you and your writing are valuable, makes those hours spent in front of the computer or at your desk worthwhile.

To complete the 2020 writing puzzle successfully, I not only needed a 100 submission goal, the knowledge that storytelling was important, and markets to send to—I needed inspiration for stories/drabbles/poems. Discovering new themes while looking for markets was helpful. Researching those themes often helped even more. When I spotted a call for drabbles about ancient societies, I leafed through a book on my bookshelf about lost civilizations. I discovered many civilizations I'd never heard of before. Reading that book and doing a little online research gave me far more information and ideas than could be used in 5 drabbles.

After writing the 5 ancient societies drabbles and submitting them, I wrote an “extra” drabble as a replacement in case of a rejection. Then, I wrote several poems based on the research. One society in particular appealed to me, so I began a longer story based on its possible demise. Before I could complete it, I spotted an anthology looking for flash fiction (up to 1,000 words) about Easter and other spring holidays.

A little research generated not only ideas for four short Easter and St. Patrick's Day stories, but fascinating information about uncommon folk customs. I managed to write about one of those customs before I spotted an anthology call for 500-word stories with witches, magic, or spells as the theme. Five-hundred words didn't seem too long. So I wrote three witchy tales and submitted them.

The research for these three submissions calls had given me an idea for a long story featuring a magical woman, folk customs, and an ancient society. I added the challenge of setting the witch/folk/ancient tale in the future on Earth after the grid had been destroyed. After writing so many drabbles, flash fiction stories, and 500-word tales, I was ready to sink my teeth into a novelette!

What else kept me writing when others found it difficult to put fingers to keyboard? I signed up for a writing contest! With no expectation of winning, I wanted the challenge of writing four stories of 4,000-6,000 words, in four different “surprise” genres, assigned one after another, with only three weeks to write each tale.

You might ask, “Why?” Because I knew after I'd paid the $10 entry fee, I wasn't going to waste my money! Remember the “Know thyself!” saying from my bulletin board? I knew if I invested money, I'd complete the contest. So while recovering from surgery (I did mention 2020 was a tough year), I wrote four new stories.

But I still needed more motivation to write! Remember the list of projects from my bulletin board? Beneath Raven's Wing and Dragon Rain were story collections I hoped to pull together. I focused on the raven stories first. I had almost enough stories published and unpublished for a 45,000+ word collection, but they needed to be edited, ordered, and slightly revised to eliminate repetitive imagery. Also, at least two more stories needed to be written to increase the word count to an acceptable length. No sooner had the task been completed, then I spotted an opportunity to submit Beneath Raven's Wing to an Indie publisher. The book was accepted, and the editing process began. Two stories were pulled by the publisher, so I had to write two more stories to replace them. Remember the research I'd done months earlier and the extra ideas not used? Here's where they came in handy.

No sooner had I sent off the raven story collection, then I pulled together Dragon Rain. Again, stories needed editing, ordering, and revising. Again, I had to write additional material. The dragon story collection was sent off, and currently remains in the hands of a different Indie publisher.

I must say, it was with great relief I returned to writing a few poems and drabbles. I needed to catch my breath. That was until I spotted a call for a Weird Western anthology. An idea, which required lots of research, popped into my mind. And so, the cycle began again.

Though my writing output might seem large to you, some of my writing friends completed more than one novel in 2020! I can't even imagine doing that—or maybe I can.

When 2020 put up obstacles, I viewed them as challenges. When it was near-impossible to muster the drive to write, I persisted. When rejections hit the in-box, I sent the stories to another market. When writing new material seemed impossible, I revised old work and did writerly “chores.” When ideas seemed scarce, I researched. When the world seemed to be falling to pieces, I reminded myself storytelling is part of what makes us human.

Now, the all important question: did I write and submit 100 stories/drabbles/poems in 2020? Yes! In fact, I surpassed that goal (not counting the stories/drabbles/poems resubmitted after rejection). As for the contest? I was one of the winners, and those four stories will be appearing in an anthology this spring. Counting reprints (which as a constant reviser, I revise before sending out again), over 100 of my stories/drabbles/poems were published in 2020. A bonus of persisting I never expected.

What's in store for 2021? I've modified my new stories/drabbles/poems goal to fifty. Why? Because I want to complete a novel and at least one non-fiction book. Do I expect 2021 to be easier than 2020? No! I expect this year to come with its own roadblocks and detours. Still, I will persist.

In conclusion, I say to each of you reading this essay, be proud of being a storyteller. Remember, as our long ago ancestors gathered at night around the fire to chase away the shadows and warm not only body, but soul, it was the storytellers who helped the world make sense. It was the storytellers, with little more than a stick with a glowing red tip and their imagination, who wove the threads of our society and inspired our future.

Be that storyteller. Persist despite setbacks. Find inspiration in the ordinary. Cheer on the successes of fellow writers. Don't allow a closed door to prevent you from knocking on another door. Seize opportunity if it shows up on your doorstep. And challenge yourself to weave the warp and weft of story—which make up the fabric of who we are and who we want to be.

Updates regarding the essay—Beneath Raven's Wing, the 1st story collection mentioned, was published Jan. 30, 2021 by Fae Corps publishing, and continues to receive good reviews. Dragon Rain, the 2nd story collection mentioned, is under contract with Mocha Memoirs Press, and should be published in September 2021. I've also begun working on another story collection—this one containing magical horse stories. There is a publisher interested in reviewing the manuscript this summer for possible 2022 publication. 

BIO: Vonnie Winslow Crist, SFWA, HWA, SCBWI, NLAPW, is author of The Enchanted Dagger, Beneath Raven's Wing, Owl Light, The Greener Forest, and other award-winning books. Her writing appears in publications in Japan, Australia, India, Pakistan, Italy, Spain, Germany, Finland, Canada, the UK, and USA. She's also an artist with over 1,000 illustrations in print. For more information: http://www.vonniewinslowcrist.com

Interview with Rochelle Jewel Shapiro, author of Miriam the Medium (Simon and Schuster) and her latest, Kaylee's Ghost

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro is the author of Miriam the Medium (Simon & Schuster, 2004) and like her protagonist, is a phone psychic who lives in Great Neck, New York. Articles have been written about her psychic gift in Redbook, The Jerusalem Post, the Dutch Magazine, TV GID, and the Long Island section of The New York Times. She’s chronicled her own psychic experiences in Newsweek (My Turn), and The New York Times (Lives). Miriam the Medium was also published in Belgium, Holland, and the U.K. and was nominated for the Harold U. Ribelow Award. Shapiro is the winner of the The Brandon Memorial Literary Award. Kaylee's Ghost was a finalist in the 2013 Indie Award for excellence in fiction. Her poetry has appeared in The Iowa Review, Moment, Harpur Palate, Inkwell Magazine, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review and the Los Angeles Review. Shapiro has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. Besides her psychic practice, Shapiro teaches writing at UCLA Extension and writes for the Huffington Post.


1) During our initial conversation, you had described how poetry was a medium that served as an anchor for you; one that helped you sort through all of the thoughts, emotions and complex intuitive feelings that came as a result of an inherited psychic ability. Describe the transition to storytelling prose and how this further affected you (by being able to spin fictional stories that had a realistic connection to your life and experiences).

It was natural for me to begin my writing life with poetry. It was all around me in childhood. The linoleum floor in my bedroom was printed with nursery rhymes. As soon as I got up in the morning, I would hop from “Mistress Mary” to “Simple Simon”, singing each rhyme as I went. Then there were the rhymes in the songs that I played on my record player. “In the land of France, a little girl named Tina loved to dance, dance, dance, and they called her ballerina.” But when I got to grade school, poetry was flayed from my heart by Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees”. I was always the one who managed to have to get up and recite the line, “A tree whose hungry mouth is prest /Against the earth’s sweet, flowing breast.” But in 1985, I was pulled like an iron filing by a magnet to the 811 stacks at the library and found poetry by Mae Swenson, Sharon Olds, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass, and I got that prickle on the back of my neck and shoulders that I get when I feel, as a psychic, a destiny moment.

Before long, I began to write and publish poetry and be part of poetry readings when anthologies came out. My son used to answer the phone when people called for readings and ask, “Psychic or poetry?” Poetry allows you to braid images, memories, and impressions and bake them like my Russian grandma, my Bubbie, made her challahs. My poetry was always narrative and both readers and editors would remark, “That could be a story.” And that’s what led me to short story. From there, I went into long, hard labor with my novel.

When I write fiction, I need some things to be true in order to ground me. For example, Miriam Kaminsky, my heroine, is a phone psychic like I am. And she lives in Great Neck, Long Island, as I do. But every incident, every character, is an invention. And thank goodness for that when you read the perilous things that happen in my novels. 

When my agent brought me to Simon & Schuster, I had those same prickles on the back of my neck and shoulders as when I was led to poetry. I knew I was going to sign a contract with them.  

2) In Miriam the Medium (Simon and Shuster, nominated for the Harold U. Ribelow Award), Miriam recalls an instance where six-year-old Cara asks how her mother can know things about people without them telling her. Miriam uses a Crayola box to symbolize aura colors, suggesting that since she can see the colors around people, she discern a good deal about who they are and what they’re feeling before they speak to her. Writers have always had a particularly honed sense of observation that can pick up clues from gestures, objects and behavioral patterns that other observers might not take notice of. It is in this way, looking for the hidden or unexpected in real life and making a study of people around them, that writers derive inspiration for the formation of their characters. As Miriam is supposed to reflect certain similarities to your own abilities of perception, how does having the added intuitive layer of observing individuals affect how you build your own characters/influence your creative process?

When I do psychic readings, I’m watching and hearing the information that comes to me in the form of images, scents, sounds, words, bodily sensations, and sometimes even tastes. (I get the cold throat burn of a scotch on the rocks, the thick, warm sweetness of a cup of cocoa.) And I get to know small details of my clients’ lives as well as their big secrets. I demonstrated some kind of stylized jumping that I saw one client do when she was a child. “That’s Chinese jump rope!” she exclaimed. “I used to love it.” Another client said to me, “This is the most intimate conversation I’ve ever had, but I’ve barely opened my mouth.”

It’s just like that for me with fictional characters. I get to know all sorts of things about them that aren’t even pertinent to the story, but help me build a strong character, no matter how minor he or she is. I believe in my characters because once I set my mind to them, I get everything I need to feel close to them in the same way that I get to feel about my clients. They even come to me in dreams.

Sometimes I write letters to my characters, asking them to solve a plot point. “Dear Kaylee, What would you do if..?” Then I put on music—Mozart these days because his music is rumored to make you smarter—and I write out the character’s reply. Sure, it’s my own mind writing the answer, but when you treat your character as you would anyone else whom you’re intimate with, you’ve really got something! And I think that intimacy with your characters leads to intimacy with the reader.    

3) At the conclusion of Miriam the Medium, Miriam learns to be sure of herself, trust her inclinations/instincts, have faith in her talents and pursues her passion regardless of the perceptions of others. So often in life, for a number of reasons, we are dissuaded (whether by society in general, a certain teacher/authority figure/person of influence) from following our dreams, cautioned against having our talents encouraged and told not to trust our subjective instincts. Be it a calling, a profession or a life path, talk to us about the balance between pragmaticism and taking the unconventional road where a passion is realized.  

Odd the way parents foist music lessons on disinterested kids, holler at them if they don’t practice, sit through tedious piano recitals, and then, if their children decide to become musicians, the parents are desperate to talk them out of it. Parents want their kids to become lawyers, dentists, accountants, so that someday their kids will be able to afford to foist music lessons on their progeny.

It’s no different with writing. Dare to become an English major and everyone is asking you, with a raised brow, “So, what are you intending to do with it?” Creative writing major? Forget it. Better to say you’re studying micro-economics (code for, I’ll be earning very little, which might be the truth). That means you will have to figure out another job to sustain you. And what’s wrong with that? William Carlos Williams and Fyodor Dostoyevsky were both practicing physicians. Nathaniel Hawthorne was a weigher and a gouger at the Boston Custom House   which housed offices to process the paperwork of imports and exports. Dan Brown, before he struck it rich with The Da Vinci Code, was a high school English teacher.

If there’s a passion inside you, no matter how much you resist it or forces seem to be working against you, it will grab you by the seat of your pants and the back of your collar and carry you to it, kicking and screaming if necessary. After going to college and getting a Master’s degree in fine arts, I didn’t want to become a professional psychic like my Russian grandma, my Bubbie, even though I respected and adored her. I wanted to be modern, to do something that reflected my education. But whatever else I did, I would constantly blurt out things people hadn’t told me, because I heard them in my mind as if they had already told me, which made it uncomfortable  for people to be around me. When I gave in and became a professional psychic, this inclination to tell people what was going on in their lives was channeled into my work, and I was free to go anywhere without embarrassment for the first time in my life!

4) With Kaylee’s Ghost (a finalist for the 2013 Indie Award for excellence in fiction) you were able to revisit the vivid characters of your traditionally published novel yet tell the new story using the trendy e-book format and self-publishing model. Tracing the evolution of family, gifts and boundaries inherited as well as the undeniable bonds between three generations, what were some of your favorite creative aspects of writing this book? What were some of your favorite publishing aspects of this book (utilizing the technology and self-publishing methodologies)?

It was exciting to write a novel in which the characters could grow up along with me. In Kaylee’s Ghost, Miriam Kaminsky, the phone psychic, is now a  grandmother who wants more than anything to mentor her granddaughter, Violet, to be psychic the way her Russian grandma, Bubbie, had done with her. And  Miriam’s daughter, now a modern businesswoman who remembers the downside of life with her psychic mother, digs in her heels. As tensions heat up in the family, Violet, a sensitive and brilliant child, is torn between them until Miriam’s gift backfires, bringing terrible danger to those she loves.

Not only was the plot new, but all the minor characters as well. I found it like a Color Field painting. If you put a red square against a green background, it appears totally different than putting a red square against a blue background.

But what was most exciting was that I missed the characters. They lived in my psyche long after the first book was sent to press. And they dwelt in the lives of my fans as well. I kept getting fan mail that said, “When are we going to hear from  Miriam again?” And here she is in Kaylee’s Ghost.

I published Kaylee’s Ghost on Amazon and Nook for a deeply emotional reason rather that a logical choice. My top New York agent, the wise and savvy Jack Scovil , the owner of his wildly successful agency, who had told me “Everyone will want to read Kaylee’s Ghost.” Then Jack Scovil died and the scramble began of finding a new agent. One prestigious agent was so excited to take my book, but she hung onto it for six months without reading it because she was so busy. And I know how long it can take to sell a book once and agent has accepted it. I turned sixty-five and I said to myself, 'Better get a move on, Girl.'

Truly, if it hadn’t been for my first book having the wide reach of being published with Simon & Schuster, Kaylee’s Ghost would not be on the map. I am a tech dud. You have to be an ingenious techie and marketer to make a self-published book  happen. But with the support of fans and fabulous opportunities such as this one, word is getting out. Maybe Jack Scovil’s spirit is helping me, because such an uncanny thing happened that it had to be supernatural. A famous European psychic, Birkan Tore, who has his own show in Sweden, was watching an old episode of  The Mentalist when he saw my first novel, Miriam the Medium, lying on a table. He looked up the title and read the book. He was so excited that he phoned me. I told him about Kaylee’s Ghost and he’s recommending it to his viewers and his huge number of students. Now really, even if you’re a non-believer, wouldn’t you have to admit that something uncanny was afoot?    

5) Give our writers a brief glimpse of the traditional publishing cycle in terms of your personal experience (from the query to the manuscript being accepted by an agent, the search for a publisher, the post-publishing publicity push that can include both author and publisher effort, the shelf-life of the book and so forth…). 

First step is to write a sock-o query letter. The query letter gives an agent a sense of how you write and also teases them into desperately wanting to read your book, Go to book jackets and read the copy and you’ll see how to do it. Whoever writes them certainly doesn’t give away the plot, but in a few words, gets the reader excited to read the book. Yes, there are loads of lists of agents, but one of the best way to find one is to think about which authors your work has a kinship with. For example, one of my authors is Alice Hoffman, who often writes about the supernatural. Then see go to their books. There’s always an acknowledgement of their agent. Query him or her.

When and if you get an acceptance from an agent, know that you might be required to do extensive rewrites before he will send your book out. Also, publishers may hang onto your book for quite awhile. The whole process requires that you not just sit back and wait, but start on your next project with the self-assurance that something will happen for you.

Listen up. You don’t just get a book published today unless you’re some kind of celebrity, no matter how good it is. One of the first things a publisher will ask you is, “What is your platform?” That means you have to have a blog with tons of followers, a FB page with tons of followers and LIKES, tons of twitter followers, etc. I was lucky enough to have published about my psychic experiences in The New York Times (Lives) and Newsweek and had an article published about me in Redbook.

In other words, you usually need to be “known” in some way before a publisher will take a chance on you. The upside of this is that you can do a blog that attracts attention such as E.L. James did with Fifty Shades of Gray. The publishers are looking for buzz and then they will sign you up and movie deals will happen.  I attended BEA (Book Expo of America) this year and learned that authors were posting their books on free sites to get reader feedback, all the while social-marketing the heck out of their books, reading them on YouTube, etc. That’s what got the authors lucrative book deals. Keep one foot in the waters of the literary world and the other in the widening gyre of social media.

6) What areas do you focus most on in your classes as an instructor of writing through the UCLA extension?

I teach a course called “Emotions into Art” at UCLA Extension. If your characters aren’t driven by desperate emotions, what will keep the reader reading? Think of Gatsby’s desperation to win back Daisy. Think of Hamlet’s desperation to expose the truth of his father’s death. Even comedies have desperate characters. Think of the characters in Yona Zeldis McDonough’s A Wedding in Great Neck where each member of the family is in a desperate clash for his own identity and search for love. Author Maxine Hong Kingston asks her students, “What do you feel?” about what they’ve read or written and she finds that they give analyses instead. She teaches them to work on feeling scene by scene so that the reader can have feelings inside himself.

This is the way I teach as well. I help students find their deepest themes, what eats at them in their lives:  sibling rivalry, betrayal, fear of abandonment, etc. Find your life themes and apply them to fictional characters, even if they are aliens, and you’ve got something worth working on for yourself and certainly something worthy of a reader’s attention.

Links:

http://rochellejewelshapiro.com
http://www.amazon.com/Kaylees-Ghost-Rochelle-Jewel-Shapiro/dp/1481033263/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354310013&sr=8-1&keywords=Kaylee%27s+Ghost
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kaylees-ghost-rochelle-shapiro/1114018233?ean=2940016124605

Interview With Book Marketing/Promotion Maven and Author, M.J. Rose

M.J. Rose is the international bestselling author of 11 novels, including Lip Service- where she pioneered electronic self-publishing and later landed a traditional publisher, The Halo Effect, and The Reincarnationist series. She is a founding member of International Thriller Writers and serves on the board as well as being the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. Her two popular blogs are Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory.  She has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine.

1) From the Beginning~

Through the blog you devote to book promotion, Buzz, Balls and Hype, you feature an interesting column by Susan O’Doherty, PhD, a clinical psychologist and fiction writer specializing in working with creative artists and their process.  A recent series was focused on beginnings- how writers prepare themselves professionally, emotionally and psychologically for the emergence into the world of their next novel.  In the January Magazine interview by Linda Richards, you responded to a question asking about what particular characters you related to in a novel by saying, “I don’t do that in my novels.  I write to entertain myself and I don’t want me to be in there.”

Referencing the two quotes below about this process of entering the writing, my question would be how do you prepare yourself to begin a book?  If your process involves a measure of personal distance, how do you clean the slate of your mind so to speak and write upon a blank canvas, choose your language and keep your own passions/convictions separate from the writing?

In Reporting the Universe, E.L. Doctorow writes of the origins of a book and the process of writing as follows:

 “The truth of the matter is that the creative act doesn’t fulfill the ego but changes its nature.  As you write you are less the person you ordinarily are- the situation confers strength.  You learn to trust what comes to you unbidden.  An idea, an image, a voice, comes to you as a discovery, and you don’t possess what you write any more than the mountain climber possesses the mountain.”

“A book begins as an image, a sound in the ear, the haunting of something you don’t want to remember, or perhaps a great endowing anger.  But it is not until you find a voice for whatever is going on inside you that you can begin to make a coherent composition.  The language you find precedes your intention or, if not, is sure to transform it.”

I’m afraid my answer is not as interesting as your question – or Doctorow’s quote. I start a journal for each new book and create the main character’s world – his or her likes, dislikes, fears, dreams, and wishes.

I collect the ticket stubs for a performance of the Metropolitan Opera that she went to, a postcard from her mother's first trip to Europe, a piece of the red and white string on the pastry box from her grandmother's apartment: it's all in the scrapbook.

While I’m searching, I’m also looking for the question I want the book to answer  - because for me every novel answers a question that I have – even if no reader ever knows the question – or the answer – that process is what keeps me interested, motivated, and curious.

2) On Mediums~

Having lived across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art for various periods in your life (both as a young child and an adult) as well as being an art major at Syracuse University, art plays a major role in your life and in your creative work from its incorporation into your novels to your former role as a creative director at a New York City ad agency.  You’ve spoken of your love of the artist’s life- the preference of museums to bookstores, art supply stores to computer stores and how art as opposed to the written word, can move you without logic.  Although these artistic mediums have great differences, they both serve as significant forms of your individual expression.  Talk to us about how and whether these disciplines feed one another in your work- not just in combining them, for instance to write about art as in the Reincarnationist series, but how the detail used in art might aid your descriptive prowess in prose or how the formulation of a story might inspire the way a piece of art or a series of paintings come together.

Art feeds me. I don’t feel whole or happy if I don’t visit a museum or art gallery or sit down with a book of paintings every few days. I imagine that the act of looking is for me both an escape and a discipline. It kick-starts my imagination on some subliminal level and pushes me into a state of being where my creativity is engaged.

At the same time, I am aware that when I write I am seeing  - literally – the story in my mind and writing down what I see as opposed to focusing on the words I am writing. 

I think I am still a painter. My imagination paints scenes in my mind and I use words to draw them into coherent stories, frame by frame.

3) On Psychology~

In the Butterfield Institute novels, your latest e-book In Session and the Jungian philosophies of the Reincarnationist series, there is a clear passion for the study of psychology, a hunger to understand the darker corridors of the human mind, seldom explored in such explicit detail.  In the opening scene of The Hypnotist, when protagonist Lucian Glass discovers the young woman slain against the picture frame “as if she were its masterpiece”, an interesting concept is introduced- as though an individual is a piece of artwork within the confines of a frame.  Throughout the series, “memory tools” are used to access aspects of the self beyond limitations of time and space.  You’ve compared the act of writing to a “memory tool” that you use to step into a different consciousness, free of worry about any one person or thing.  Had the professional callings of art, marketing and writing not stuck for whatever reason, could you see yourself as having gone into psychology and having been comfortable with the required professional distance free from emotional attachment to cases?  Also, what “memory tool” or method do you use to step out of your professional modes and access revitalizing serenity in your down time?  In other words, how do you turn ‘off’ from work in your spare time and do those ‘just for you’ activities that replenish the spirit?

I did try for a while to become a therapist and while I was very satisfied and stimulated by learning and listening what frustrated me and ultimately led me to realize I couldn’t follow that path was I wanted also to suggest solutions.

I wanted to write the ends to the patient’s stories.

Luckily I had a great supervisor who pointed that out to me and steered me back to the world of fiction where I could analyze as well as write the ending.

Between the lines and under my stories, you might see that every book I’ve written is really a psychological exploration of the main character.  I write about how who we were influences and dictates who we are and how we have to come to terms with our past before we can hope to find our way to a satisfying future.

As for turning off work – I don’t try to turn it off. I’m a very nervous person and my mind is overactive so if I don’t have a characters to fuss over and worry about I’d  be worrying too much about the real people in my life and  torturing them with my anxiety.

4) On Self-Publishing~

The hot topic you read about almost every day in the industry right now is the advent of self-publishing through e-books. No stranger to the process, you began with your novel Lip Service in 1998. Having a supportive agent yet finding no place for the book as editors cited marketing difficulties, you knew that with your advertising background you could sell copies online. Setting the price at $9.95 and putting it up on a website, you began to aggressively market the novel. It was chosen by the Doubleday Book Club and went on to be picked up by a traditional publisher. You caution writers, however, that though it is an example of self-publishing success that it was a means to an end and not a career move; the intention was not to stay self-published but to segue into traditional publishing.

Authors such as H.P. Mallory and Amanda Hocking have enjoyed the boom in e-books and then are able to make the choice whether traditional publishing is a fit or whether they’d like to continue on their own. Letting the markets decide has leveled the playing field. Mallory, like many of the new breed of authors enjoys a bit of both; she is now with Random House and yet doesn’t shy away from plans of a nonfiction e-book on her Cinderella publishing story.

With the excitement around e-books, it isn’t a wonder that the well-established companies/authors are coming up with their own e-book models. Fastcompany.com’s recent profile of Angela James who is the new head of Harlequin’s blossoming e-book imprint is food for thought. In a strained economy, purchase percentages are rising, not falling. In less than two years, fiction sales as e-books have gone up nearly ten percent. And what is selling even faster are romance e-books. Harlequin has caught the wave and its authors are enjoying the company brand while earning more revenue.

Although having been published by Pocketbooks (Lip Service, In Fidelity) and having found a regular home with Mira (a division of Harlequin) for a large portion of the body of your work including The Halo Effect, The Memorist, The Reincarnationist and The Hypnotist, you also recently published the e-book, In Session where the protagonist from the Butterfield Institute Series, Dr. Morgan Snow, meets with author Steve Berry's Cotton Malone, Lee Child's Jack Reacher & Barry Eisler's John Rain as a creative, erotic suspense novel.

I’ve heard and read of authors feeling limited by contracts on particular series in traditional publishing, having to conform to expectations of a certain expected voice and theme. Dabbling in different areas of exploration, writers have the key to all worlds and it seems that many are using a combination of traditional and self-publishing or e-publishing divisions to be able to have the freedom to indulge all of their different projects. Considering the modern market, have you found it creatively fulfilling to be able to transition between the different publishing mediums and do you recommend writers become versed in electronic publishing?

I don’t think it’s ever a mistake to learn about the business you’re in. It’s very early in e-publishing to know where it is going and who is going to wind up on top or how it will all shake out. But certainly knowing the landscape and keeping up to date on how it is changing is important if you intend to have a career as a writer.

For those of us who have been traditionally published, playing in both arenas is fun. But what does worry me is all the people I meet who talk about how great it is to write and publish a book in a couple of months. We need to respect readers and give them our best not our fastest if we want them to stick with us. And I am concerned that publishing is becoming more important than writing-that having written is more important than writing – that the craft is getting pushed aside for the accomplishment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I read a review- a bad review – of a self published book on Amazon the other day.

The reviewer didn’t like the book and complained about bad grammar, static dialogue, flat characters, no story arc, and no conflict – all in all - that it was a very boring book.

Under the review, a commenter chastised the reviewer– saying he should back off – that the writer had self published her first book and she was still learning. That she couldn’t be expected to get it all right first book out of the gate. That she would grow with more books and that the reviewer should be supportive and more helpful. Didn’t the reviewer know how hard it was to write a book?

The exchange pointed up where self-publishing doesn’t serve the author because that isn’t the way to learn the craft.

5) On Storytelling True~

It has been theorized by Carl Jung and numerous authors that we as humans learn best by the use of stories.  In the O Magazine article, “Ask Your Mother To Tell You A Story”, you reveal the importance of knowing the stories of the significant women in our life and how these have an effect on different aspects of our lives and our understanding of them.  From your great-grandfather, you were introduced to the concept of past lives as reflected in the Reincarnationist series.  When I decided at about twelve years old to go collecting stories from the eldest living generation in my family, a world opened up about who I was, where I came from and who I would become.  Having spent the time with my great aunts and uncles and grandmother to learn about their amazing lives, even if the anecdote was about just one moment, was a precious experience for me that I appreciate even more now as many of them are no longer here to share those tales of the rich, influential lives they lived, affecting in a positive way politics locally and nationally.  Talk to us about how stories you’ve gathered from family members and close friends have shaped your life both personally and as an author.

I remember my father telling me bedtime stories he made up on the spot – about a little girl named Abakazoo who lived in Kalamazoo whose life was surprisingly like mine but much more dramatic and colorful. Every night he told me a new installment. I was enthralled. There was so much magic in those stories. In how the ordinary me – turned into the fabulous, interesting adventurous little girl who lived on the other side of the world.

Recently, I asked him about those stories and he launched into a new one.

He was the storyteller in my family. My mother was the reader.

And between the two of them...

6) On Time Management~

Today, more than ever, authors aren’t just writers- they are publicists, managers, and in the case of self-publishing, publishers and agents as well. Social media and blogs are fantastic ways to spread the word but like so many of us know, they can chip away at our precious time, become black holes and result in neglect of the actual creative work. Networking is essential life-blood to the author (new or established). Dena Harris in “Making the Connection”featured in Novel and Short Stories Market, advises you spend 10 minutes of each writer-work day networking. With AuthorBuzz (your company that focuses on marketing ad campaigns for writers), your various blogs and new titles, you are well-versed in the balancing act. How would you go about advising authors, both in traditional and self-publishing, to make plans to better allocate their time during a given work day? How do you feel they should go about formulating/organizing these plans and tailoring them to suit their individual needs/goals?

I’m not good on giving advice because everyone is so different. But I do suggest every writer remember this – no book ever dies anymore now that there are ebooks. And so a book is new to ever reader who never heard of it. And as authors we are our own brand and we need to keep our brand alive and vital if we are to stay alive and vital as authors.

For some of us that means social networking a half hour a day – for others it means hiring people to work for us – for others it means never finding a balance but always ricocheting between working on marketing and working on our books.

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